january 2014 southwest retort
DESCRIPTION
Magazine of the Dallas-Fort Worth Section of the American Chemical SocietyTRANSCRIPT
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 1
SIXTY-SIXTH YEAR JANUARY 2014
Published for the advancement of
Chemists, Chemical Engineers
and Chemistry in this area
published by
The Dallas-Fort Worth Section, with the cooperation of five other local sec-tions of the American Chemical Society in the Southwest Region.
Vol. 66(5) JANUARY 2014
Editorial and Business Offices:
Editor: Connie Hendrickson, 802 South Jefferson, Irving, TX 75060; 972-786-4249; [email protected]
Copy Editor: Mike Vance, [email protected]
Business Manager: Danny Dunn, 6717 Lahontan, Fort Worth, TX 76132; 817-361-0943; [email protected]
The Southwest Retort is published monthly, September through May, by the Dallas-Ft. Worth Section of the American Chemical Society, Inc., for the ACS Sections of the Southwest Region. Contact the Editor for subscription and advertisement information.
SOUTHWEST RETORT
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 2
Contact the DFW Section
General: [email protected]
Education: [email protected]
Elections: [email protected] Twitter: acsdfw
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Fifty Years Ago………..……………….….....4
Employment Listings………………...…..…3
ARTICLES and COLUMNS
Project Management and the ACA.…...…...6
And Another Thing………..…………..…….9
Five Questions………...………………....…21
From the Editor…………...…..…………...23
NEWS SHORTS
Microswimmers and transport……...…….10
Pill-friendly insulin…………..………….....17
Culinary black diamonds…...…………….18
Colored silk from the silkworm..……..…..20
AROUND-THE-AREA……………..…...15
DFW SECTION NEWS
Climate Science Project Update………......13
Volunteers needed ACS National…...…….14
Volunteers needed SWRM 2014……......…14
Science Fair judges needed…………..…..…7
Letters from the Officers………….....…….19
MEETINGS and EVENTS
DFW January Meeting……...…...…….…..11
Young Investigators Symposium
DFW February Meeting………………...…12
ASMD@D March 1-4..…….……………….8
INDEX OF ADVERTISERS
ANA-LAB……………………...……...……..5
Huffman Laboratories……………...………3
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 3
EMPLOYMENT CLEARING HOUSE Job applicants should send name, email, and phone, along with type of position and geo-graphical area desired; employers may contact job applicants directly. If you have an open-ing, send your listing, including contact info for your company, to [email protected]. Deadlines are the 7th of each month.
EDITING AND
PROOFREADING
SERVICES
Need someone to
proof or edit your next paper,
grant, or presentation? Let an
experienced proofreader and
PhD chemist do it for you! I
have a strong grasp of English
grammar and scientific writ-
ing and can condense text
without losing the underlying
meaning. Competitive rates!
Contact Mike Vance:
408-786-7451
POSITION AVAILABLE
Looking for a Technical Sales
& Business Development
position in Dallas?
Are green
applications
desirable to
you?
www.uslm.com
Contact United States
Lime & Minerals at
972-991-8400
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 4
FIFTY YEARS AGO IN THE SOUTHWEST RETORT
The ACS Southwest Regional Award ad-dress in Houston last month by Dr. Jacob Sacks of the University of Arkansas dealt with “Science Education in Latin America.” His talk was printed in the January 1964 is-sue of the magazine. Some of the main themes include that science education was mainly involved in preparing students for professional or engineering programs rather than for the science itself and that students tended to come mainly from the wealthy classes. The situation was steadily improv-ing, but support by both the Rockefeller and Kellogg Foundations is still crucial in main-taining momentum.
At Rice University Dr. Edward S. Lewis has been named Chairman of the chemistry department. He succeeds Dr. Richard B. Turner. Dr. Lewis joined the Rice faculty in 1948. A native of Berkeley, CA, he re-ceived his B.S. degree from California in 1940 and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard in 1947. He was a National Re-search Council Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLA in 1947-48. He recently received a PRF grant for “Plar-Gas Reactions.”
At Texas A&M, Dr. J. M. Prescott of the biochemiatry department received a $45,000 Welch Grant renewal to study “Chemistry and Metabolism of Proteins and Amino Ac-ids.” Faculty members attending the ACS regional meeting in Houston were Drs. Frederick Duke, B. J. Zwolinski, A. Dan-ti, F. Sichio, E. A. Meyers, A. F. Isbell, H. Rakoff, A. Merijanian, and R. A. Zingaro. Mr. R. Copeland and J. O. Page presented papers. Those attending the Welch Confer-ence in November were Drs. Duke, Zwolinski, Danti, Myers, C. K. Hancock, D. C. Convway, R. M. Hedges, and J. Jones. As of last Oct. 7, the Chemical Ther-
modynamic Properties Center is partially supported through the new NBS Standard Reference Data Program to accelerate work on thermodynamic and spectroscopic prop-erties of substances of interest to the chemi-cal industry through the MCA Research Pro-ject.
The second regular ACS meeting of the Tex-as A&M-Baylor Section was held in Waco in the new McLean Science Building. The lecturer was Professor John Oro of the University of Houston, who spoke on “Prebiological Organic Chemistry.” On Nov. 14, Nobel Laureate Willard F. Libby of UCLA give two lectures. The first lec-ture dealt with the Franck-Condon Principle, while the second lecture was on carbon-14 dating. Professor John Belew participated in a Varian NMR Workshop held in Palo Al-to the week of Nov. 11.
At the University of Arkansas the speaker for the Jan. 14th ACS meeting will be Dr. John K. Stille of the University of Iowa. His talk is titled “New Polymerization Reac-tions.” The Feb. 11 speaker will be Dr. Gordon Lindblom of the Jersey Production Research Co. in Tulsa. His topic will be “Introduction to Microbial Chemical Trans-formations.” The speaker at the December meeting was Dr. Ralph Adams of the Uni-versity of Kansas, whose topic was “Electron Spin Resonance Studies of Elec-trode Reactions.” Faculty members attend-ing the ACS Regional Meeting in Houston were Drs. Edward S. Amis, A. W. Cordes, Nirmal Shastri, and award winner Jacob Sacks.
Contributed by
E. Thomas Strom
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 5
PAGE 5
DOCUMENT TITLE
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 6
An essential requirement for the successful implementation of a project is good project management. Project management is the successful implementation of a project such that the project is completed on schedule, within budget and meets the project’s objec-tives. The attempted enrollment of the Af-fordable Care Act (ACT) is a good example of failed project management. Successful project management starts with a definition and understanding of the pro-ject’s objectives. Next comes defining the project’s requirements in human assets, money and materials. Then there is the pro-ject schedule. To schedule the project re-quires understanding the necessary steps. For each step, there must be a definition of the time needed to complete the step and the necessary human and material resources (aka money). From kinetics, chemists are familiar with the concept of the slowest or rate determin-ing reaction. The same concept applies to projects. As a simple example, a process has three steps, A, B and C. The three steps require the same amount of time to com-plete and require the same amount of re-sources. But Step B can’t start until Step A is completed. Step C can start at any time. The rate determining step or Critical Path is the Step A Step B sequence. So you start Step A, and after Step A is complete, you start Steps B and C. Please note that you do not need to have the resources for Step C on hand until Step B is completed. This helps
the project budget. Each step needs to have several points or milestones where progress can be meas-ured. The project schedule sets times at which each milestone is to be completed. If a milestone appears to be behind schedule or over budget, this is a problem. The caus-es must be understood and addressed imme-diately. The milestones provide early warn-ings of potential problems and allow timely intervention. The official line on the ACT as of September 1, 2013 was that it would be ready to run on the scheduled October 1, 2013 starting date. There appeared to be genuine surprise on October 1st that there was a problem. This is unsatisfactory Pro-ject Management. An essential ingredient to successful project management is the Project Manager. For the ACT, the Project Manager would have needed to have coordinated the efforts of computer programmers, software develop-ers, systems engineers and the people oper-ating the system. The Project Manager would have to have been aware of all devia-tions from schedules and budgets in every area. The Project Manager would have needed the authority and resources to make all modifications necessary to have kept the ACT on schedule and on budget. Did the ACT have a Project Manager? If so, Con-gress has yet to discover him/her. I have heard the deafening silence concerning the existence of a Project Manager. A Project
Project Management and the Affordable Care Act
by John E. Spessard, PhD, PE
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 7
Manager for so complex an undertaking as the affordable Care Act is a very demand-ing and necessary feature. The Manhattan Project is a good example of high quality project management. J. Robert Oppenheimer was a magnificent Project Manager. He was so important to the project that his pre-World War II leftist leanings were overlooked. In my opinion this was necessary. He was a good enough scientist to have the respect of the scien-tists working on the project. He was able to coordinate with General Groves who handled the engineering, military and po-litical issues. That Groves and Oppenheim were able to work together was a tribute to both men. The Germans and the Japanese had unsuccessful nuclear projects. Author’s note: I can’t understand why the enrollment phase of the ACT lacked a Pro-ject Manager. I wonder if the implementa-tion phases are similarly blessed.
SCIENCE FAIR JUDGES
NEEDED
We would like to extend an invitation to
participate as a chemistry judge at the
2014 Beal Bank Dallas Regional
Science and Engineering Fair. Held
annually since 1957, this competition
produces some of the best middle and
high school research projects in the
world, hosting around 1,000 students
and 400 judges. Please join us and help
support students in our region! Break-
fast, lunch, and a small memento of the
fair will be provided for all judges. Fur-
ther details and online registration can
be found on the Judge page
of drsef.org.
What: Beal Bank Dallas Regional
Science & Engineering Fair
When: 8:00 am - 1:00 pm approx.,
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Where: Fair Park, Dallas
Contact: [email protected]
Website drsef.org
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 8
Listen and discuss
Meet international experts
No parallel sessions
A place where important interdisciplinary work can start
A place where new positions can be found
Welcome To ASMD@D The Somewhat Different Conference
http://smu.edu/austinsymposium/
The 25th Austin Symposium on Molecular Structure and Dynamics at Dallas (ASMD@D), will take place at the Double Tree Hotel, Campbell Center, Dallas, from March 1-4, 2014. The conference will be held in memoriam of Professor James E. Boggs, who organized the first 23 Austin Symposiums in the time from 1966 to 2010 before the conference moved to Dallas. The ASMD@D 2014 will be organized in the spirit of previous symposia:
Featured speakers
For the list of confirmed speakers, check the website.
We hope to see you in March.
Professor Dieter Cremer Professor Elfi Kraka
Chairs of the Organizing Committee of ASMD@D
Department of Chemistry, SMU, Dallas, Texas
Click on the logo to
access the web site.
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 9
...And another thing… By Denise L. Merkle
Resolution
Welcome to 2014. The future. The 'life is what you make it,' 'you only live once,' and 'it's now or never' next year of our exist-ence. Welcome to whatever you want, need—resolve—to do with the 365 days be-tween Happy New Year 2014 and Auld Lang Syne. How will you use this precious time?
I resolve to re-do my company's office. Re-cycle journals (especially those now availa-ble electronically, sad though that is). Dis-card old posters (chromatography column technology has advanced in the past dec-ades, after all). Donate old electronics (including the brand-new phone that was purchased to improve telephonic communi-cation and only succeeded in pithing me with its unbearably high ring tone). Exca-vate out from under the strata generated by 17 years in business. Obliterate the soul-oppressing ugly blue paint. Redecorate the office. Really. This is my 2014 resolu-tion for my professional life. And so it has been for the 16 years this office has been SCI's home. What is wrong with this pic-ture? Perhaps nothing.
Contemplation of my ubiquitous resolution prompted a survey of 59 colleagues. 37% of those contacted graciously used their valuable time to answer the question, 'What are your personal and professional resolu-tions for 2014?'*
The responses were fascinating and inspira-tional. 8% made no resolutions, with more than one participant explaining that short term goals were made and met throughout the year, and another saying that dodging the guilt of aspirations unmet is a perfect reason to avoid resolutions. Of those who
sent resolutions, 5% specified professional only—and many of those were: Write! Write up data (all but one academic said this; the outlier was 'attend more faculty meetings'), Blog, establish a website for a business (which involves writing content, as we all know), and continue to write for the Retort (not my resolution—mine is to re-do SCI's office. Yes. This will happen in 2014. Really. It will.). Other professional goals include: identify and retain more cli-ents or customers, bill more hours ('after working them' was implied), follow cus-tomer interactions more efficiently, focus on business without sacrificing personal life, stay current with paperwork, dress for success, be more organized, and interact more assertively with colleagues (this isn't me, either, you may be relieved to note). One participant set 'Be more reliable' as a goal for professional and personal life.
The most popular personal resolution was Read! Read for relaxation, spiritual growth, and personal edification. A re-spondent who is nearing retirement ex-pressed the overall resolution of figuring out what's next, and one who will become a parent in 2014 resolved to figure out how to be a good one (One year is not enough. I foresee similar goals in 2015, 2016, 2017...). Those who wrote back want to Improve Relationships (including tolerating in-laws), Erase Debt, Sing Higher, De-clutter, Achieve Balance, and Be Happy.
In 2014, we all plan to live balanced, re-warding, and organized lives, full of good relationships, attainable goals—and happi-ness. Divesting of insipid office wall color,
continued on page 22
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 10
From the ACS Press Room
Bioinspired Helical Microswimmers Based on Vascular Plants
Nano Letters
In the quest to shrink motors so they can
maneuver in tiny spaces, like inside and
between human
cells, scientists
have taken inspi-
ration from mil-
lions of years of
plant evolution
and incorporated,
for the first time,
corkscrew struc-
tures from plants
into a new kind
of helical
“microswimmer.”
The low-cost de-
velopment, which
appears in ACS’
journal Nano Letters, could be used on a
large scale in targeted drug delivery and
other applications. Joseph Wang and col-
leagues point out that nanomotors have tre-
mendous potential in diverse applications
from delivering drugs to precise locations
in the body to making biosensors. To real-
ize this potential, scientists have recently
taken inspiration from microorganisms that
have tiny, hair-like structures that they
whip around to propel themselves. But
copying these nature-engineered nanomo-
tors requires advanced instruments and
costly processing techniques that make
them a challenge to produce on a large
scale. To address these issues of practicali-
ty, Wang’s group also drew inspiration
from nature, but turned to plants instead.
They isolated spiral microstructures
packed by the million in small pieces of a
plant’s stem.
The scientists
coated these
tiny coils that
are about the
width of a fine
cotton fiber
with thin lay-
ers of titanium
and magnetic
nickel. The
plant material
makes these
microswim-
mers biode-
gradable and
less likely to be rejected by the human
body. The magnetic layer allows scientists
to control the motors’ movement. When
the scientists placed the coated spirals in
water or human blood serum and applied a
magnetic field, the nanomotors efficiently
spun their way through the liquids. The
scientists conclude that the microswim-
mers show great promise for future bio-
medical uses.
The authors acknowledge funding from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency-Joint Science and Technology Office for Chemical and Biological Defense.
First plant-based ‘microswimmers’ could propel drugs to the right location
Spiral microstructures from xylem of Indian Hawthorn,
African Lily, Cotoneaster, Passion Fruit and Wild Banana
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 11
DFW Section Meetings
For questions or concerns, please contact Chair Katie Walker at ka-
[email protected] or (903) 813-3159.
JANUARY 2014
Meet DFW's New Young Investigators
Learn about exciting research in the DFW Section
Saturday, January 25, 2014, 8:30 A.M. to 2:00 P.M.
Room 114, W. A. Baker Chemistry Research Building (CRB),
Arlington, TX
Updates, a complete program, details on registration, and di-
rections will be posted at
https://www.uta.edu/chemistry/seminars/dfw-acs-meeting
SYMPOSIUM SPEAKERS (9:00 to Noon)
Kayla Green (TCU) Nicolay Tsarevsky (SMU)
Benjamin Janesko (TCU) Brian Zoltowski (SMU)
Junha Jeon (UTA)
Gomika Udugamasooriya (UTSW)
Kayunta Johnson-Winters (UTA)
Schedule:
Coffee and Welcome: 8:30 A.M. to 9:00 A.M.
Speakers: 9:00 A.M to 12:00 P.M. (includes coffee break)
Lunch and Postdoctoral Posters: 12:00 P.M. to 2 P.M.
Pizza Lunch will be provided
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 12
FEBRUARY 26, 2014
The DFW Local Section presents:
Why are Women Underrepresented in Science?
Evidence For and Against 5 Common Hypotheses
by Dr. Karla McCain Associate Professor of Chemistry & Director of Accreditation
Austin College
This talk will explore the evidence for and against five common explanations for women's underrepresentation in science. The issues raised in these hypotheses range from the episte-mology of the scientific method to possible differences in mathematical abilities between the genders to the difficulty in combining careers in science with family. Evidence from a varie-ty of disciplinary perspectives will be presented to explain facts that seem contradictory on the surface. For example, women publish fewer papers in scientific journals, but are more cited by other authors. Women scientists report consistently that they have observed sexism and discrimination during their career, but never been the target of it themselves. One study has shown that a woman's resume needs to show twice the productivity as that of a man to be rated as having equal competence. Maria Goeppert Mayer did not receive tenure until after she won the Nobel Prize in physics. This material is taken from a course Dr. McCain devel-oped and has taught in a variety of formats.
Karla McCain earned her BA in chemistry from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1998 and her Ph.D. in physical/analytical chemistry from the University of Utah in 2003. She was been a member of the faculty at Austin College in Sherman, TX since then and is currently an Asso-ciate Professor of Chemistry and Director for Accreditation and Assessment. Her research in-terests are in the area of applying spectroscopy to solve problems and understand structure in interfacial systems including dye-sensitized solar cells and organogels.
Meeting Date: Wednesday, February 26
Meeting Schedule: 6:30pm Social, 7pm Dinner & Announcements, 8pm Lecture Location: Abuelo's (East Plano), 3420 North Central Exp., Plano, TX 75074 RSVP Deadline: Friday, February 21 RSVP Link: http://bit.ly/1iDyX5R
Ticket Price: $20 per person (online price), $22 per person (at the door price) Menu: Buffet with Chile con Queso, Guacamole salad, Beef & Chicken Fajitas, beverage Payment by credit card will be available online in advance, but only cash or check will be ac-cepted at the door. For questions or concerns, please contact Chair Katie Walker at [email protected] or (903) 813-3159.
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 13
Bob Landolt, Program Director, will be attending National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) Climate Conference in January: http://www.buildingclimatesolutions.org/ Key people consulted for programming for 2014: Amina El-Ashmawy, director of the upcoming Two Year College Chemistry Consortium (2YC3) program at Collin College in McKinney (http://iws.collin.edu/2yc3/index.html) Robert Brecha, Climate Change and Sustainability Chautauqua Presenter at the U. of Day-ton (http://campus.udayton.edu/~physics/gkm/chau/DAY13-20.htm)
Jerry A. Bell, chair of the Working Group on Climate Science for the ACS, responsible for the Climate Science Toolkit (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jvtpzuESWk)
Drew Jones, designer of simulation-based learning environments and Co-Director of Cli-mate Interactive (http://vimeo.com/30081681)
Kirby Drake, General Chair of the 2014 Southwest Regional (SWRM) ACS Meeting in Fort Worth 2014 activities for our project include: February 6: Presentation with Terah Coffman for the Dallas Community College Faculty Conference Day March 14: Presentation at the Collin College 2YC3 Conference (Jerry Bell is also prepar-ing a March 15 workshop for this conference) April 9: Presentation at Texas Wesleyan’s Sustainability-themed University College Day Spring/Summer-Daylong Climate Science Symposium for regional Community College Faculty, date and Keynote Speaker selection in progress November 19-22: Presentation invited for the ACS Fort Worth SWRM Sources of Climate Change: Pessimism and Optimism For a referenced, admittedly worst-case scenario about climate change (use of at least one reference is incorrect): http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/12/17-5
The optimistic view on what would work to mitigate climate effects: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTS9RY1z_i8&feature=player_embedded
DFW ACS Climate Science Project UPDATE IN A NUTSHELL
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 14
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!
The 247th
National ACS Meet-
ing will be here in Dallas on
March 16-20, 2014. Volunteers
are needed for the Local Section
Hospitality Booth, to help Na-
tional with meeting logistics,
and to help with the outreach
event on Saturday, March 15.
Help us show off our local sec-
tion and DFW to chemists from
across the nation! If you are in-
terested, please fill out a volun-
teer form so we can contact
you with further details:
http://bit.ly/1m22B4F Kirby Drake is planning the 70
th Southwest Regional Meet-
ing to be held in Fort Worth in 2014. Please email Kirby ([email protected]) if you are interested in serving as the sponsorship/exhibitors chair, undergrad program-ming chair, or a symposium chair.
DFW Section
To volunteer for the 2014 Southwest Regional ACS Meeting! SWRM 2014 will be held at the Fort
Worth Renaissance Worthington Hotel,
November 19-22, 2014. If anyone would
like to suggest a topic or organize a symposium,
please contact Kirby Drake
or Danny Dunn [email protected]
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 15
Around the Area
University of Arkansas Presentations Feng Wang gave an invited talk, Exploring No Man’s Land with Simulations at Coupled Cluster Quality, with coauthors Yaping Li, Jicun Li, Feng Wang, at the ACS Northwest Regional Meeting, Baylor Uni-versity, Waco, Texas, Nov. 17-20, 2013. Ryan Bauer presented a poster, Under-standing the collagenoysis mechanism by M9 collagenases from Clostridium histolyti-cum and Grimontia hollisae, at the 2013 SE Regional IDeA Conference. Co-authors were Keisuke Tanaka, Rohana Liyanage, Jackson O. Lay, Jr., Rakehiko Mima, Osamu Matsushita, and Joshua Sakon. Charles Wilkins presented a seminar De-cember 6, 2013 at Valparaiso Uni- versity. Its title was Ionization in Vacuum (MAIV) for High Resolution Fourier Trans-form Ion Cyclotron Resonance. Julie Stenken gave a talk entitled Microdi-alysis Sampling of Cytokine Cell Signaling Proteins in Neuroscience and Wound Heal-ing Applications, November 15-17, 2013, at the SE Regional IDeA meeting, Little Rock. Nan Zheng gave an invited talk at the 69th ACS Southwest Regional Meeting, Waco, TX, Nov. 18, 2013, entitled New Synthetic Adventures of Amine Radical Cations by Visible Light Photocatalysis. Publications Raman spectroscopy of carbon nanohoops: Hang Chen, Matthew R. Golder, Feng Wang, Rames Jasti, Anna K. Swan, Car-bon, 67, 203-213, 2014.
Microdialysis sampling techniques applied to studies of the foreign body reaction: CR Sides , JA Stenken, Eur. J. Pharm. Sci. 2013 Nov 21. doi:pii: S0928-0987(13)00440-5. 10.1016/j.ejps.2013.11.002. Comparison of microdialysis sampling per-fusion fluid components on the foreign body reaction in rat subcutaneous tissue: GD Keeler, JM Durdik, JA Stenken. Eur. J. Pharm. Sci. 2013 Nov 15. doi:pii: S092- 0987(13)00443-0. 10.1016/j.ejps.2013.11.005. Pharmacokinetics in rats of long-acting hu-man parathyroid hormone-collagen binding domain (PTH-CBD) peptide construct: R Stratford, C Vu, J Sakon, R Katikaneni, R Gensure, T Ponnapakkam. Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Accepted. Achievements For the one-year anniver-sary of the release of the organic chemistry app Tap OChem, a free version has just been released: Tap OChem Lite. Developed by Neil Allison and Joseph Allison, these apps have been downloaded by fac-ulty and students from over 20 countries, including USA, China, Japan, India, UK, Sweden, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Singa-pore, and Nigeria. The Apple app store list-ing can be found at the following URL: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tap-ochem-lite/id763895340?mt=8
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 16
Around-the-Area cont.
DFW Section at the Perot Museum
The Perot Museum of Nature and Science invited the local section to participate in Discovery Day on January 11. Discovery Day is a day at the museum where families discover the fun of science together. They try out real experiments, design and build new creations, and see dynamic perfor-mances with guest scientists, educators and artists. Discovery Day runs from 10 AM-4 PM, and we average about 4,000 – 6,000 in attendance throughout the day. The January 11th Discovery Day theme was States of Matter. The museum had experiments and demonstrations throughout the museum fo-cusing on polymers and states of matter. Representing the DFW Local Section were members of the Mean Green Chemistry Demo Team (from the University of North Texas), including Diana Mason, Robyn Ford (the 2013 Schulz award recipient), and Jo King from Amarillo (former chair of the Panhandle Plains Local Section and high school chemistry teacher). The DFW Local Section will be back at the museum on Sat-urday, March 15th to perform hands on ex-periments in collaboration with the National ACS Committee on Community Activities, demonstrating great science and fun to kick off the National ACS Meeting in Dallas! If you are interested in participating, please fill out the volunteer form.
UTA Dr. E. Thomas Strom has received a grant
from ACS President Tom Barton to support
the HIST symposium on "Fifty Years of the
James Flack Norris Award:
The Foundations of Physical
Organic Chemistry" to be
held at the Dallas ACS
meeting next March. In ad-
dition, the President has des-
ignated the symposium as a
'president recommends'
event. This means that the event will be in-
cluded in all the presidential advertising in
C&EN (both preliminary and technical),
registration insert, and the onsite booklet
program.
Professor Emeritus Martin Pomerantz has
accepted a part-time position in the Chemis-
try Division of the National
Science Foundation. It in-
volves essentially the same
duties as a Program Officer,
but his actual title
will be 'Expert.' His duties,
which involve sending for
ad hoc reviews of proposals,
running panels and evaluating those pro-
posals, will be carried out remotely from his
UTA office.
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 17
From the ACS Press Room
Improved Stability and Antidiabetic Po-tential of Insulin Containing Folic Acid Functionalized Polymer Stabilized Multi-layered Liposomes Following Oral Ad-ministration Biomacromolecules
Since insulin’s crucial discovery nearly a
century ago, countless diabetes patients
have had to inject themselves with the life-
saving medicine. Now
scientists are reporting
a new development to-
ward a long-sought in-
sulin pill that could
save millions the pain
of daily shots. Pub-
lished in Biomacromol-ecules, the advance
could someday not on-
ly eliminate the “ouch”
factor, but also get nee-
dle-wary — and weary — patients to take
their medicine when they should.
Sanyog Jain and colleagues explain that pa-
tients with diabetes sometimes skip doses or
stop taking their insulin because the injec-
tions can be painful. But doing so puts their
health in danger. An estimated 347 million
people globally (about 26 million in the
U.S.) are living with diabetes. In the U.S.,
more than a quarter of these patients are
taking some kind of insulin therapy. For
years, researchers have sought a way to
transform delivery of this therapy from a
shot to a pill, but it has been a challenge.
The body’s digestive enzymes that are so
good at breaking down food also break
down insulin before it can get to work. In
addition, insulin doesn’t get easily absorbed
through the gut into the bloodstream. To
overcome these hurdles, Jain’s team com-
bined two approaches to shield insulin from
the digestive enzymes and then get it into
the blood.
They packaged insulin in
tiny sacs made of lipids, or
fats, called liposomes,
which are already used in
some treatments. Then,
they wrapped the lipo-
somes in layers of protec-
tive molecules called poly-
electrolytes. To help these
“layersomes” get absorbed
into the bloodstream, they attached folic ac-
id, a kind of vitamin B that has been shown
to help transport liposomes across the intes-
tinal wall into the blood. In rats, the deliv-
ery system lowered blood glucose levels
almost as much as injected insulin, though
the effects of the layersomes lasted longer
than that of injected insulin.
The authors acknowledge funding from the Department of Science & Technolo-gy (India) and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi.
PACKAGING INSULIN INTO A PILL-FRIENDLY FORM FOR DIABETES TREATMENT
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 18
FIVE QUESTIONS FOR...
Unlocking the Puzzling Biology of the Black Périgord Truffle Tuber melano-sporum Journal of Proteome Research
Just in time for the holi-
days, when cooks in
France and elsewhere
will be slipping bits of
the coveted black Péri-
gord truffle under their
turkeys’ skin for a luxu-
rious flavor, scientists
are revealing the secrets
that give the culinary
world’s “black dia-
mond” its unique, pun-
gent aroma. Their study, which could lead to
better ways to determine the freshness and
authenticity of the pricey delicacy, appears
in ACS’ Journal of Proteome Research.
Mark Baker, Shoba Ranga-
nathan and colleagues note
that the harvest of the Péri-
gord truffle, a fungus that
grows underground around
the roots of oak and hazelnut trees in winter,
has plummeted recently due to climate
change, the loss of arable land and the culti-
vation of lower-quality truffles. Paired with
an increase in demand from “foodies” seek-
ing exotic flavors, prices for this truffle
have skyrocketed to more than $900 per
pound. Though long celebrated in the kitch-
en, only recently has the black Périgord
truffle garnered scientific attention. In 2010,
European scientists published the full ge-
nome of the Périgord, but this raw blueprint
remained largely un-
mined. In their report,
Baker and Ranganathan’s
team go beyond the genet-
ic code to identify and de-
scribe the truffle’s proteins
for a better understanding
of the culinary delight.
By marrying techniques in
bioinformatics and prote-
omics, they combed data-
bases to unearth what pro-
teins make the black Péri-
gord truffle, which they obtained from the
Marshalls’ Terra Preta truffière in Braid-
wood, New South Wales, unique. They
found that more than 2,500 proteins out of
the truffle’s nearly 13,000 were similar to
existing proteins in other fungi, and they
identified nine proteins that contribute to
the cherished aroma. “This study has re-
sulted in the functional characterization of
novel proteins to increase our biological
understanding of this organism and uncov-
ered biomarkers of authenticity, freshness
and perfume maturation,” the scientists
state.
The authors acknowledge funding from the ARC, Macquarie University and Terra Preta Truffles.
From the ACS Press Room
SCIENTISTS UNEARTH SECRETS OF PÉRIGORD TRUFFLES, THE CULINARY ‘BLACK DIAMOND’
Truffle Hunting
Charles Henry Cook (1830-1906)
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 19
DFW Officers’ Section
Letter from the Chair-Elect
Greetings colleagues,
I would like to extend my appreciation for be-ing elected Chair-Elect of the DFW local sec-tion of ACS. I am fairly new to the area, but I am truly looking for-ward to the year ahead of us. I am very excited
to serve our section and to help promote the great chemistry being performed in the DFW area. I look forward to meeting many more members during our outstand-ing programs yet to come in 2014!
All the best,
Shana Santos
Letter from the Chair Welcome back and Hap-py New Year! 2014 brings a lot of excitement and chemist activity to the DFW area! We kick off the year with the DFW Young Investi-
gator’s Meeting on Saturday, January 25, at UT Arlington. The meeting will include research presentations from young faculty in the local section, postdoc poster presentations, and lunch! Check out the speaker list at http://www.uta.edu/chemistry/seminars/dfw-acs-meeting.php.
On Wednesday, February 26th, join me at
Abuelo’s in east Plano as we learn about "Why are Women Underrepresented in Science? Evidence For and Against 5 Common Hypotheses" with Dr. Karla McCain of Austin College. Make sure you RSVP online by Friday, February 21st. RSVP: http://bit.ly/1iDyX5R
The 25th Austin Symposium on Molecular Structure and Dynamics will be in Dallas on March 1-4. This year the symposium is being organized by the Computational and Theoretical Chemistry Group at SMU. Check out the schedule and list of speakers here: http://smu.edu/austinsymposium/index.html.
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED! The 247th National Meeting will be here in Dallas on March 16-20. Volunteers are needed for the Local Section Hospitality Booth, to help National with meeting lo-gistics, and to help with the outreach event on Saturday, March 15th. Help us show off our local section and DFW to chemists from across the nation! If you are interested, please fill out a volunteer form so we can contact you with further details. Volunteer form: http://bit.ly/1m22B4F
I’d also like to highlight the activities be-ing undertaken with the DFW ACS Cli-mate Science project, which includes a presentation to the Dallas Community College Faculty conference in February, a presentation and workshop for the Collin College Two-Year College Chemistry Consortium in March, and a presentation at Texas Wesleyan’s sustainability-themed University College Day in April. Thanks to Bob Landolt for coordinating these ef-forts.
cont. on page 22
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 20
FIVE QUESTIONS FOR...
Uptake of Azo Dyes into Silk Glands for Production of Colored Silk Cocoons Us-ing a Green Feeding Approach ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering
For some 5,000 years, cultivated
silkworms have been spinning
luxurious white silk fibers des-
tined for use in the finest clothing.
But current dyeing practices pro-
duce wastewater that contains po-
tentially harmful toxins, so scientists are
turning to a new, “greener” dyeing method
in which they coax already-colored fibers
from the caterpillars by feeding them dyed
leaves. Their findings are published in the
journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & En-gineering.
Anuya Nisal, Kanika Trivedy and col-
leagues point out that dyeing textile fabrics
is one of today’s most polluting industries.
The process requires huge quantities of wa-
ter for bleaching, washing and rinsing, and
it results in a stream of harmful wastewater
that needs to be treated effectively before
release into the environment. To make the
industry greener and more environmentally
friendly, researchers have been developing
less toxic methods, including feeding dyed
leaves to silkworms so they spin colored —
rather than white — cocoons. But so far,
this technique has only been tested with
one type of dye, which is too pricey for
large-scale production. Thus, the team
turned to azo dyes, which are inexpensive
and account for more than half of the tex-
tile dyes used today.
They dipped or sprayed
mulberry leaves, the silk-
worm’s food of choice, with
azo dyes to see which ones,
when consumed, would
transfer to the silk. Of the
seven dyes they tested,
three were incorporated into the caterpil-
lars’ silk, and none seemed to affect the
worms’ growth. The scientists noticed that
certain dye traits, such as the ability to dis-
solve in water, affected how well the dye
worked. “These insights are extremely im-
portant in development of novel dye mole-
cules that can be successfully used in this
green method of producing colored silk
fabrics,” they conclude.
The authors cite funding from the CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, and theCentral Sericultural Research and Train-ing Institute, Mysore. Editor’s note: Other articles and comments on dye-fed silkworms Intrinsically Colored and Luminescent Silk Cutting water consumption in the silk in-dustry http://www.popsci.com/article/science/scientists-color-silk-feeding-silkworms-fabric-dyes
From the ACS Press Room
SILKWORMS SPIN COLORED SILKS WHILE ON A ‘GREEN’ DYED-LEAF DIET
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 21
FIVE QUESTIONS FOR...
The first '5 Questions' participant of 2014 is Kirby Drake, Partner in Klemchuck Kubas-ta, LLP in Dallas. Klemchuk Kubasta LLP is an IP boutique law firm offering a full ar-ray of intellectual property-related services, including litigation and enforcement of all forms of intellectual property as well as registration and licensing of patent, trade-mark, trade dress, and copyright.
Ms. Drake also actively promotes science and science knowledge via work in numerous non-ACS organizations and previous service to ACS as Treasurer of the ACS DFW local section, Business Man-ager of the Southwest Retort, and PR co-chair of SWRM 2004. Most importantly for
the Southwest Region and the hosting ACS DFW local section, Ms. Drake is General Chair of the 2014 Southwest Regional Meeting, which will be held in Fort Worth's Worthington Hotel from November 19-Novermber 22: http://www.swrm.org/swrm2014
1) How old were you when you realized you wanted to be a scientist? I always liked science, but I believe it was when I was about 15 years old and I found myself asking my parents to attend a summer sci-ence camp at North Carolina State Univer-sity. Thankfully, my parents let me attend, and I had a fantastic time experiencing sci-ence with other students, fueling my inter-est going forward.
2) What aspect of your career do you enjoy the most? Although I no longer “do”
much science myself on a day-to-day basis, what I enjoy most is interacting with scien-tists every day in my job. Whether it is working with inventors to prepare and pros-ecute patent applications, working with ex-perts to analyze patents in litigation, or more recently, becoming part of The Shoul-ders of Giants, a wonderful non-profit dedi-cated to providing opportunities for science enthusiasts to teach children about science as well as to conduct their own scientific analysis (www.sciencegiants.org), I thrive on being connected and involved in science, and my job allows me to do that.
3) Since 2010, you've been the Chair of SWRM 2014. What are your goals for the meeting? My greatest goal is to make this a meeting that meets the needs of the widest range of scientists and science enthusiasts possible. I know that there are many people out there who are interested in science and could benefit from attending SWRM but feel intimidated in thinking that many presentations may be over their heads. Al-so, I know that there are many people inter-ested in starting businesses or learning about new areas of science but don’t know where to get that information. Accordingly, in addition to providing high-quality presentations on new developments in chemistry (organic, inorganic, computation, etc.), my goal is to provide presentations/workshops related to business, education and legal issues that can be of benefit to the bench chemists, educators as well as busi-ness people—because we are all ACS mem-bers.
4) What can ACS members do to help make the meeting the best SWRM yet?
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 22
acsdfw.org
First of all, attending the meeting is key. We want to have high attendance, and since the meeting will be held in Fort Worth, it should be accessible to most in our region. Also, en-courage your business or university to par-ticipate, whether through sponsoring, exhib-iting, participating in the graduate school fair, submitting an abstract, presenting a pa-per or poster, or even just attending.
Finally, we can always use more assistance in organizing the meeting. No contribution is too small. Please contact me if you are willing to get involved. The next few months will be critical to the success of SWRM 2014. ( [email protected])
5) Who is your Science Hero? and why? While there are many people that I could identify, my science he-ro is Dr. James F. Bonk, former chemistry pro-fessor at Duke Universi-ty. His name became so synonymous with gen-eral chemistry that the
class came to be called “Bonkistry.” He was a true teacher in every sense of the word; he was passionate about teaching and would constantly update/adjust his teaching style to reach the largest number of students possi-ble, even those just trying to fill a require-ment through taking his course. Although I only had him for general chemistry, he con-tinued to be an excellent advisor and mentor throughout my time in the chemistry pro-gram at Duke.
Thank you, Ms. Drake, for participating in '5Q'! Interesting Scientists Wanted! To volunteer to be interviewed for 5 Questions, contact [email protected].
cont. from page 9: And another thing
ugly ceiling fans and a lot of the accumula-tions generated by an active career in sci-ence may be necessary for this—or, the more I think about it, perhaps not.
Happy New Year. Best wishes for the most wonderful possible 2014. May your happi-ness be focused outward, to the world and the good we must do in it.
Many, many thanks to the survey partici-pants! Plans to cite respondents were changed after many request anonymity, and it became obvious that it was safer to protect everyone's identity than to inad-vertently rip off the masks.
cont. from page 19: Letter from the chair
Our Meeting-in-Miniature will take place at Texas Wesleyan University in April, so stay tuned for details about dates and abstract submissions. Also, keep an eye out for a Planning for Success meeting in May to dis-cuss ways to revise our local section bylaws and practices to make us even more awe-some at serving and supporting chemists in the local area. I look forward to hearing your thoughts! Finally, I’d like to extend a hearty “thanks for all your hard work” to our outgoing past chair Aaron Fletcher, and a welcome to our new Chair-Elect Shana Santos. Good luck in the New Year!
Katie Walker, 2014 Chair
January 2014 Southwest RETORT 23
From the editor
When we started the eRetort in 2011, I used press reports from the ACS web site to add
some variety to the magazine. I first began googling
the topics in order to find clip art to insert for texture,
but have ended up finding really interesting addenda
to these short releases. For example, this month I
found that the BBC reports that alien invading truf-
fles are supplanting the Périgord black truffle:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/
nature/7405004.stm. Woo hoo! Are alien invaders
harvesting the truffles with space pigs?!
Meetings: We have several coming up (not to mention the March ACS meeting here in
Dallas). The DFW Section meeting in January is our second annual Young Investigators
Conference; it will take place at UTA on January 25th. The 25th Austin Symposium on
Molecular Structure and Dynamics at Dallas (ASMD@D) is scheduled for March.
One of the most important announcements in this is-
sue—maybe the most important—is the need for
judges for the Dallas Regional Science & Engineer-
ing Fair, on February 15th in Fair Park in Dallas. All
too many local school science fairs have suffered un-
der cutbacks. Support all your local science fairs and
consider volunteering for this one.